Amanda Krauss has this to say about industry versus higher education:
You have no idea how much it pains me to say this, but speaking from experience I now believe that private industry is doing a better job of communicating, persuading, innovating, of everything the university has stopped doing. I do not take this as indicator of how well capitalism works, I take it as an indicator of how badly universities have failed, while still somehow aping the worst aspects of corporate capitalism. (And no, I sure as hell wouldn’t bail them out.)
She advocates leaving higher education.
I think I would be more likely to be willing to do this had I not just accepted a tenure-track position. Or maybe not. My non-tt position was teaching the students who most needed to know/understand written English. They were folks trying to get out of poverty.
I do wonder what my new university is going to say if I start having my students read the CHE fora and check the job postings. For undergrads, they will probably be fine. If I do it with graduate students, though, I’ll be talking myself out of a job.
I need to think through the best way to get the idea across that an MA or a PhD are not going to pay in security or even a job for most of the graduates. We really need to give our students an idea of what else they can do.